Alex Hall wins X Games Slopestyle

For the past couple of years, the hype around Alex Hall has been real. If you’re into freeskiing and you haven’t been following this guy, you’re seriously missing out — just check any of his recent edits for some proof.

Today on the X Games slopestyle course in Aspen, A-Hall bagged his first major slopestyle win (I guess we're not counting World Cups). He was easily the most consistent skier on course, landing all three of his runs and improving his score each time to top out at an impressive 95.66. The winning ingredients were a rail line like something out of a video game, followed by freakishly technical spin-and-grab combos through the jumps: a left double cork 12 stale, switch left double cork 1440 seatbelt japan, and switch right double cork 1260 reverse mute.

Alex Bealieu-Marchand trailed Hall in second place with an explosive run of his own — big rail tricks including a 540 swap, a big 450 on, pretzel 2 out and a switch disaster 630 on, capped off with a switch right double 900, left double bio 1260 mute and a switch left triple 12 safety. Clearly gunning for the win today, ABM’s third run was looking marvelous until he sent it just a bit too big on his huge disaster switch 630 on and got caught up on the landing.

Young Norwegian style lord Ferdinand Dahl ended up in third place with an 80.66 after a surprisingly underwhelming contest with a lot of botched runs. Still, Dahl’s run was well worth the podium, with flawless moves including back-to-back switch 540s in the rails, and a double bio 12 safety and matching left and right switch 1440s in the jumps.

Last year’s gold medalist Henrik Harlaut ended up in fourth place and was clearly dissatisfied with his score of 78.33—but his run, though mostly clean, lacked big highlights beyond his signature switch triple orbital 1440 mute. Behind Harlaut in fifth, Jesper Tjäder made a memorable performance by landing the stuntman trick of the day, a switch disaster front flip 90 to switch on the down-flat-down box. Most of the other competitors fell victim to mistakes on the top rail tier, missing rail transfers, 360 swaps on the down-flat-down or botching the box gap, while flat light didn’t do anyone favors in the jumps.

It’s a huge win for Alex Hall, a much-hyped skier’s favorite who now, like many before him, must assume the mantle of a big dog. If his performance today is any indication, we can look forward to a lot more great slopestyle runs from him in the near future.

That’s it, that’s all for the 2019 X Games as Hall joins the winner’s circle including Cassie Sharpe (women’s superpipe), Mathilde Gremaud (women’s Big Air), Kelly Sildaru (women’s slopestyle), Alex Ferreira (men’s superpipe) and Birk Ruud (men’s Big Air).